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Recently, the Red Cross had to admit that 25% of the money received went to cover their admin costs. The remaining amounts are then farmed to other charity groups who are allowed to siphon off the top for their costs before every giving a dime to anyone. Here is the article to back it up https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/o...s.html?mcubz=0
Oh yeah... the Red Cross says those blankets they give out are quite valuable. According to recent purchase orders revealed to the NY Times, they value the costs of those blankets to be $28 each.
We all want to help, but we need to be smarter. Be sure to check Charity Navigator to see how your money is being spent.
Those "blankets" are just little, thin things like what you get on an airplane. They have Red Cross written all over them, so they are, basically, an advertisement. A little less money spent on design and more spent on materials would be helpful.....
It's a catch 22 and it sucks. We have wildfires here so lately I've been hearing ads (from the Red Cross I'm guessing) saying how many small charities are popping up and most likely aren't legit, so you should really only donate your money to a good, well established charity, like say hey, the Red Cross maybe????
I say it's a catch 22 because there are scams but the commercials are pretty much saying don't risk anything small and only give your money to the red cross.
Important yes, effective is what this thread questions.
From what I have seen, the so-called questions here are no better than birther or denier-grade nonsense. Some should be quite a bit more careful about the sources from which they take their information.
When I was in Marine Corps boot camp the drill instructors told us what a vile organization the Red Cross was. I had this confirmed by the WWII veteran that swore me in. The Red Cross has never gotten a dime from me since then. I give to the Salvation Army instead. The Red Cross CEO get over a million dollars a year in salary. The head of the Salvation Army gets about $22,000 a year and housing.
Regardless of what side of the fence you are on re: Red Cross. The Red Cross President/ CEO Gail Mc Govern. per Charity Navigator was receiving $517, 364 as of fiscal year ending 6/2015. For those who don't know f Charity Navigator or Guidestar they are reporting agencies for charities and contain a wealth of information. Everyone should look at these before donating to a charity.
Those "blankets" are just little, thin things like what you get on an airplane. They have Red Cross written all over them, so they are, basically, an advertisement. A little less money spent on design and more spent on materials would be helpful.....
How many lush blankets have you provided to those in need?
Were I to lose everything in a disaster, who's going to help me, you? I would appreciate a Red Cross blanket, along with anything else the RC and its contributors provided.
Those "blankets" are just little, thin things like what you get on an airplane. They have Red Cross written all over them, so they are, basically, an advertisement. A little less money spent on design and more spent on materials would be helpful.....
Some of the best relief organizations are the Church run groups. They are efficient and use volunteers and infrastructure provided by the Church so they are very effective at delivering bang of the buck. You can designate a donation and they have to use the money for that cause.
The ones I am aware of that do exemplary work:
UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief)
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
Catholic Charities USA Disaster Operations.
All of these have an excellent track record. One other advantage unlike many other charities, they do not just hang around while the disaster is fresh on everyone's mind and in the new and then leave. They stick around for a considerable time (years) and help people deal with the aftermath. None of these groups limit assistance to people of their denomination. They help whomever needs help.
Salvation Army is also a great organization. I am not familiar with their disaster efforts, policies, or track record, but they do most things well.
Some years ago, when I was a partner in a law firm part of my contribution to the firm was to research various charities to find ones that delivered the best bang for the buck for specific issues so the firm could jointly donate to a particular charity or disaster relief effort. Sometimes they were recalcitrant about donating to Church based charities, because people might dicker over denominations or whatever, but they really are the most consistently effective for the money that I found and they provide long term service, not just "here is some food, see ya, we are off to the next news story" .
ARC is a mess. They are horribly disorganized and inefficient. I still continue to support them and donate blood hoping they will get their act together but I am getting frustrated on both accounts (financial support and blood donations). I thin it is absurd they are trying to take control of other, more organized charity's efforts. (I am assuming the others are better organized because pretty much every group is). I thin maybe the ARc is just too big to function effectively any more. Plus they make poor use of volunteers and pay people for things that could readily be done by volunteers (but they want people they can control more - meaning employees).
Best thing other groups can do is set up separate form ARC and do their own thing without ARC involvement or interference. The post above, if it is real and not just made up, is not clear whether the group wanted ARC to hand out the burgers or they were only trying to hand them out to people at an ARC shelter and ARC stopped them. It is not clear whether there was some reason these people did not just set up outside the ARC shelter and give away the burgers. It is clear to me that if the story is true, ARC did not intend to run the hamburgers through their warehouse and distribute them, they were just going to throw them out. However, it is never a good idea to do that in front of volunteers.
A group I am involved with is a good example of why you do not want to turn away volunteers (and how disorganize ARC blood collection is). We sponsored a blood drive. We got volunteers to take time off for an appointment at the collection location. The night before, ARC cancelled. we had to sit a the location all day and tell the volunteers sorry, thanks for taking time off to come here. Those people are unlikely to ever volunteer for any of our future projects ARC or not. We decided to give ARC another chance. We set up a blood drive and went to great lengths to meet their retirements for a location. We had enough people scheduled they needed three or four nurses (forget which). We also told them we expected a number of drop ins because some people could not commit to a specific time, but said they would come when they were available. One of the ARC nurses simply failed to show up. One that did show up was very grumpy and absolutely horrid to the volunteers, condescending, nasty and rude. She was so nasty some people just left. They could not keep up with the scheduled appointments and people were told they had to wait two to three hours if they had an appointment. The walk ins we had to tell to just forget it, unless they happened to come by when all of the people with appointments had left after being told there was a two hour wait. At the end of the drive, ARC said it was hardly worth it to them because they collected so few pints of blood - that is because we turned away or they chased away 13 people who wanted to donate. Those 13 people are not likely to ever volunteer for anything our group does again. The worst thing you can do is waste a volunteer's time. They will never come back. I get the same thing when I got to their local donation center. I have an appointment. Sometimes there is one other donor there or maybe two or three, never very many. But I have to wait for up to an hour, sometimes more. Sometimes I just leave. Sometimes they are indifferent or nasty to me when I stay. they are never apologetic, they act as if I owe them. Often they do a terrible job and I end up with a sore arm and a huge black mass in my arm. They do not care, do not apologize, or blame me (but my doctors office has no problem taking blood from me painlessly and without harm).
This is just an example, collecting blood is different from disaster relief, but it isn't entirely. It is indicative of the overall condition and policies of the (dis)organization. People I know from church, work, or just socially, who go to disaster sites for mission work have told me the ARC acts similarly at disaster sites in their experience. They are unorganized, grumpy, suspicious of everyone, insist on being in charge and then do nothing. Maybe it is just a coincidence and only the few locations where people I know happen to end up, and their other locations are marvelously organized. However from my research they are not well rated, do not get the best reports and are not efficient at all with the money provided to them. People are appreciative of their efforts that is clear, but they could do a lot more with the resources they are given.
What ARC is best at is being big and visible and that is important. People want to donate money but do not know where to donate to - ARC is pretty known and easy to find. They are good at getting in front of cameras. The smaller groups that are more efficient tend to be quiet and busy and apparently do not have time to push themselves in front of cameras and do interviews. They also may not be big enough to provide sufficient relief - not even all of them put together, to fill in if the ARC was not there. Thus, although it may be an inefficient bureaucratic behemoth, it is what we have and I do not think we could do as well at disaster relief as we do without them. Would it be better if Catholic Charities or one of the other more efficient groups was the behemoth and ARC was little? Probably, but they are not. We need ARC and so we need to continue to support them inefficient, nasty, and sometimes lacking in common sense though they may appear to be.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 09-06-2017 at 09:34 AM..
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